Farewell to a legend: Vale George Smith

Cover image courtesy of Inglis

George Smith, who died this week aged almost 93, was a legend in Australian racing and breeding circles. A renowned judge of a yearling, he began his career at Warlaby Stud for Ted Underwood who also owned Stockwell Stud. When Underwood sold Stockwell to Ken Cox, Smith moved there and spent many years managing the property.

“George is a legend. He commenced in the industry over 70 years ago at Warlaby Stud and there were some great stallions there, like Helios. George moved to be the stud manager for Ken Cox at Stockwell in the halcyon days of Showdown. Back in those days, Victoria would have been the preeminent Thoroughbred state in Australia and Geroge was the stud manager of the preeminent farm in Victoria,” said Simon Vivian.

Cox invested in the incredible G1 Middle Park Stakes winning juvenile Showdown (GB) to join him in 1966. He made an immediate mark with Dual Choice, who won the VRC Sires’ Produce Stakes. He won a Golden Slipper with Tontonan, and was the Australian Champion sire in 1975/76 and 1977/78.

“He gained a reputation as a masterful stud master working with great stallions. He was there and assisted with the delivery with Vain into this world, one of the great influences on Australian racing.”

A top-class yearling selector

Smith remained at Stockwell Stud until 1983 and worked as a consultant yearling selector for several industry players.

“When he retired from his hands on stud duties, he did a lot of independent consulting work for horse trainers like Gai Waterhouse, Lee Freedman, and a number of others. He also worked very closely with sales companies. First the South Australian outfit that is now Magic Millions, and then consulted to Magic Millions and eventually to Inglis where I spent many years and hundreds of thousands of kilometres in a car with him inspecting yearlings,” said Vivian.

“We looked at thousands of horses together. He was a man who shared his knowledge freely with a lot of people. He was a legend for being able to get around a sales complex. He just loved being with horses. He had a unique eye. It wasn’t an eye that he was taught, it was just natural.”

A fine mentor of young people

Many industry participants have benefited from working alongside Smith and listening to the way he outlined his processes in yearling selection.

“From my time with him, I was lucky enough to spend over 20 years with him, he was very liberal with his preparedness to teach young people. He wasn’t a lecturer. You needed to ask him questions and he would share his knowledge. He invited you to do that and he was remarkable in the way he could see things in a horse that others can’t. It’s a unique gift and when you look at legendary horse people, they have a unique eye. They can see something in the horse that others can’t,” said Vivian.

Craig Rounsefell of Boomer Bloodstock agreed. “I spent three years in close proximity with Geroge in the early 2000s when he was the main selector for Gai Waterhouse’s team. He was very influential, key fundamental things in what I look for in a horse. Over the last 25 years, whenever I could, I’d seek his advice and counsel. Even today when I’m looking at a horse, there are things he taught me. He was very generous with his knowledge and I’m forever grateful to him.

“What he looked for, he kept simple and was always willing to share and you could come to him with questions. He was so successful too. When he was with Gai, the number of Group 1 winners that he singled out at a sale was quite incredible.”

In the early 2000s, Waterhouse trained the Group 1 winners Arlington Road, Shamekha, Tempest Morn, Sunday Joy, Assertive Lad, Hasna, Dance Hero, Grand Armee, Desert War, Ha Ha, Shower Of Roses, and many others.

Selection wasn’t about perfect conformation

One thread that comes through talking to those who were lucky enough to spend time with Smith is that he had a natural eye for a horse.

“(He saw their) desire and intelligence and athleticism. He would look at a horse and pay attention to their eyes and ears to see how alert they were. He paid a lot of attention to their temperament, and to their balance. You could say all these things but you have to be able to see it, and he was a great interpreter of a horse,” said Vivian.

“He could look at a horse and where we would sit back and say the things that make a horse a great competitor are its heart, its brain, and its lungs, as well as the other physical attributes. George had this innate ability to see things that most people can’t see.”

James Harron is one of many who worked as an intern alongside Smith while at the Waterhouse stable. “George was an incredible man. He was massively influential in my career. I got to work with George when I was doing bloodstock assistant work with Gai Waterhouse,” said Harron.

A systematic approach

Smith's system is one he taught to many young people, and he was one of the first to use such a systematic approach in assessing horses.

“I used to plug his notes into the computer system in the evenings and he would test me and teach me about what we’d seen through the day. He was incredibly generous with his knowledge, a true gentleman. I was incredibly lucky to meet him at that time in my career. I learned so much from George on how to assess a yearling and how to categorise a yearling and understand how to write notes, and how to grade it," said Harron.

“His systems and his eyes and his experience to get his results on the track were just second to none. He was a great teacher and happy to teach. Always happy to give information to young people and he’d always follow the people he’d helped along the way, and I think he got a great deal out of (watching them succeed).

“Every horse had a grade. When he had a big grade on a horse, it was inevitably a good horse. He got it wrong very rarely. He’s been doing that (rating system) for so long. It was systematic, and everything was done diligently. He’d done it since his stud farm days, where he was grading foals.”

Vivian learned the same system under Smith. “I still use a similar format and similar series of words (for yearling notes) that I learned when working with George. I could look at James Harron’s notes and see George Smith’s notes in them. It wouldn’t be just him, so many people would have that,” said Vivian.

“It was an interesting self-taught way he had of numerically scoring horses in addition to his notes. He would forgive faults, not all faults, if the horse had all the other right attributes. He wasn’t a stickler for learning the conformation of the horse to disregard this or that. He was forgiving, provided the horse gave him a gut instinct.”

A gentleman and a gentle man

It’s a wonderful life lived when people have only good things to say about the impact you’ve had, and Smith’s own character was a highlight for many.

“A lovely man. There wouldn’t be a person in the world who met him who doesn’t talk about him as being a gentle man, as well as a gentleman,” said Vivian.

“He was a very kind man, and kind with sharing his knowledge. Incredibly humble. In the time in the car with him, you’d have to pry things out of him. ‘What was you liked about Brawny Spirit?’ because Brawny Spirit was a tiny pit pony, and most people would say he’s too small, but George saw something. He wasn’t a braggart, half the time, he would find it difficult to put into words what he saw. It was just an innate ability.

“He preferred to be with horses than people, not in a rude way, he just adored horses. We’d go to a farm and he’d say ‘I’ve never been there before.’ And then we’d pull into the driveway and he’d say, ‘Six years ago, we drove down here and on the left was a bay colt with a red bandage on his near hind fetlock.’ He couldn’t remember the property, but he remembered the horse. He was like that with people. ‘You’ve met this gentleman before,’ and George would say, ‘No I haven’t’ and the bloke would say ‘We’ve met four or five times.’ But he’d remember every horse.

“The horses were what he paid attention to. He embraced other people’s opinions but never changed his mind.

“He was always great company and it’s very sad to lose a person of his ilk. His contribution to the whole industry can’t really be measured. There's no scorecard for what he’s done. He did it because he loved it. The number of lives he’s affected and all of them in a positive way. There’s not many people who you can say that about.”

Harron concurred. “He was a kind man, a real gentleman. He commanded so much respect in his own way. He was softly spoken, and he was very articulate, and measured in what he said. He had a fun side to him too, he enjoyed a couple of Crownies at the end of the day. He just loved animals, loved horses and the challenge of identifying them. He was confident in what he knew, he’d mastered it as much as you could, so when he spoke you listened.

“It’s incredibly sad that he’s passed and I’ll miss him dearly. He’ll always have a special place in my career and my life and I’m forever indebted to him.”